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A former mayor of a northeastern El Salvador city was sentenced to 13 years in prison after trying to sell US$25,000 of cocaine to undercover cops, the Salvador prosecutor's office announced Thursday.
The judge ruled that ex-official Cristobal Benitez Canales was implicated “directly and unequivocally by the witnesses in the process, for which he was condemned to serve a sentence of 13 years in prison.”
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Benitez Canales belongs to the Grand Alliance for National Unity party and was elected as mayor in March 2015. Originally arrested in 2010, the charges against him were dismissed a year later by Judge Enrique Beltran. However, the case was reopened in 2013 and Beltran was charged with bribery last year.
In the indictment, the prosecution said the former mayor was selling drugs within his own municipality along with a partner.
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Sentencing of #ElSalvador mayor on drug charges highlights weak political appointment system https://t.co/gNqBqQrQlA pic.twitter.com/GPND0Mnrux
— InSight Crime (@InSightCrime)
January 7, 2016
“Those involved were captured October 2014, through a controlled delivery where police agents participated undercover … during the operation the former mayor and his accomplice were trying to sell two kilograms of cocaine valued at US$25,000,” prosecutors explained.
According to Insight Crime, El Salvador has a relatively small but not insignificant role in drug trafficking in the region. Present-day drug trafficking routes are said to have their roots in the civil war, when smugglers transported arms and other items through the conflict-gripped region.
Local traffickers have international connections with organized crime groups in other countries, such as infamous drug lord El Chapo’s Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico, and often work in concert with corrupt border officials, police, and other local authorities.
2015 was #ElSalvador’s most violent since its civil war. A gang war is waging, & territory is strictly enforced. https://t.co/ZDN6yxSjGY
— InSight Crime (@InSightCrime)
January 7, 2016
In the small Central American country where powerful warring gangs have a stranglehold on society, drug trafficking groups have been known to infiltrate police and judicial institutions to smooth the ease of their trade.
El Salvador’s group of “transporters” that move drugs through the country are typically separate from the powerful gangs like Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 that are largely responsible for the country’s skyrocketing murder rate.
Both drug trafficking and rampant gang violence, combined with widespread impunity, are major factors in El Salvador’s ongoing challenge of governability.
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